I own nothing but the story.

Jay walks away that day with four fractured ribs and a bump on the head that would make the hole in Kai's blush. His body is riddled with cuts and bruises of many kinds, but aside from that, he's as fit as a fiddle. Cole had taken the brunt of the damage caused by the collapsing building, allowing Jay not only to survive, but to walk away.

Jay is grateful, if angry.

There are many details about the event that have haunted Jay since, but the image that keeps coming back, more so than the grisly memories, is the look in his friend's eyes as he decided to pull Jay beneath him. It's a sharp thing, resolute in both standing and decision. It's the kind of look one gives when they're staring death in the face and daring it to take them.

It's that look that haunts Jay.

Cole's powers do grant him some immunity to the force of the building, but the metal beam tore the lining of vital organs, serving as the cause for most of the bleeding back in the hole they were in. The bruising he took to the back wasn't light, either.

The hours he spends in surgery are long; even after Jay is released with bandages and enough painkillers to make Serpentine high for a week, Cole lies behind off-white doors.

Somehow, the ninja find them in all the chaos. Looking back, it isn't too hard; the event caused heads all over the region to turn, but the first time Jay sees them since the innocent morning is when he's lying on a table, gazing at the bruises on his torso as a doctor looks over an X-ray.

Kai walks in first, his head peering around a corner, as though scouting. When he sees Jay, he gives a shout down the hall, high-pitched and flushed with relief.

The comfort his friends' presence brings is almost too powerful to name, and truth be told, Jay desires nothing less than a night surrounded by their comfort, hearing their voices. To his dismay, painkillers make him sleepy, and the doctor has given him a boatload.

Nevertheless, he gives his friends each a hug. He pulls them as tight as he can manage, inhales, memorizes the feel and warmth of each of them. They're his friends, and he'll be damned if he ever takes that for granted again.

He describes what happened in a low voice, scratched raw from smoke and screaming. They likely knew of it, but they listen intently, expressions grave.

The day is long, the sun gone, and it's only when he can't keep his eyes open anymore that the doctor asks the ninja to leave. Jay doesn't want them to; he can't stand the thought of spending the night alone, but he isn't up for arguing.

He's so tired of fighting.

They tuck him into a stiff bed under stiffer blankets, and though his mind is spiraling at a speed too fast for thought, he falls asleep, the day weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Cole allowed him to walk away that day, to walk away for tomorrow.

Jay isn't in the hospital too long afterwards; there's little one can do for broken ribs except rest and try not to move. Cole remains in intensive care. They don't let anyone see him, but Lloyd tells Jay that he's getting better every day. Jay isn't sure where Lloyd gets the information, but he forces himself to believe it, anyway.

He wishes he could have done more.

When Cole finally is removed from the ICU, it's been a week.

Jay finds him in a wing far, thankfully so, from the more urgent areas. The information is a small, surprising comfort, the only he gets from the scene. When Jay walks into the room, helped along by Nya, Cole looks awful. Sun-kissed skin sits pale against the sheets, mottled purple and yellow. He's hooked up to all sorts of machines and fluids, and one arm, the arm that saved Jay's life, is shelled with a cast.

He looks beaten and, though asleep, tired.

Jay can relate.

He sits in a chair next to the side table, which is already covered in cards. Jay hadn't the energy to make one himself, but Zane brought something in his name; in a small ivory grey pot, there gathers a bundle of daffodils, a mix of cream and cadmium.

They're Cole's favorites.

Though he knows he's in for a long wait, Jay asks Nya for time alone. There's a lot he wants to say, and it's a lot to plan out.

In some ways, he's still angry. In others, he's grateful. And still others, he's a mess of emotions that aren't easy to sort through on his own without making his head hurt.

The wait is long. After everything, it is long.

The chair, a hard plastic one, is hell on his back, but injured ribs make every position an uncomfortable one to be in. Sitting in it for hours on end do him no favors, but he's willing.

He decides that it's the least he can do.

When Cole wakes, it's to sunlight that shines in sheaths through the blinds over his bed. Jay is caught dozing by mistake. The first sign he gets that his friend is awake comes in the form of a hand, brushing a feather-like touch against his own.

Jay jerks, wheezes at the rattle of pain that shoots through his torso, and looks his friend over.

Cole is smiling at him.

It's a beautiful sight.

"Cole," he greets through a grin. The swell of relief that swallows his chest is enough to make his head drop.

"Hey," his friend says. It's a terribly simple word after all that's occurred, but Jay's practically giddy.

Or upset.

The urge to cry has sprung up again, making his chest ache, and he can't explain the origin of the feeling. He tries to talk through it, given that that's what he does best, and that his friend has spoken to him—

—his friend has spoken to him.

His friend is alive, healing.

"Cole," repeats Jay, "You—" a wave of emotion capsizes his control before he can stop it, "Why would—why would you do that?"

The smile falls, and Jay regrets saying anything at all, but Cole isn't upset.

He tries sitting up—winces—then says, set in determination, "Why wouldn't I?"

Why wouldn't I? The words echo far through Jay's mind, past the memory of his friend's face that haunts him so, and he wonders what it is he did to deserve this. "You…" he tries, "How do you feel?"

Cole chuckles, a harsh sound that forces his good hand to grab at his bandaged side. He's a wreck, through and through. Jay almost smiles with him, but he can't get his mouth to work right.

When Cole calms, he's still amiable, growing more so by the second, and Jay wonders how. "I'm so glad you're okay," he eventually says, voice hoarse.

Okay? That's wrong. Jay should be the one saying that, and even if he did, it wouldn't be entirely correct.

"Thanks to you," he replies. He almost asks the question again; why would you do that?

"You're not hurt too bad, are you?" continues Cole, "I didn't get a good look at you back in—back there, and I—"

Jay shakes his head, shakes it hard, "It doesn't matter—"

"Of course it does!"

"Not now!" anger licks a sudden and fiery stripe through his gut, seemingly from nowhere but had likely been there the entire time, "You died, Cole! You died, and there was nothing I could do about it."

Cole clamps his mouth shut tight and drops his gaze to the sheets. Jay's looking at them, too, reeling over how wrong the conversation had gone so quickly. Everything is wrong. He hadn't meant to say that, to steer the conversation anywhere near this direction. He leans over despite his protesting torso and rests his elbows along the mattress, a stiff thing.

Palms over his eyes, he says, "You died for me...I had to...I tried CPR, but you died." And there was nothing he could do but sit there, bleeding in the rubble, utterly useless.

Cole doesn't respond—had he not known?—and he dons a distant stare, brow furrowed in thought. The quiet that follows is a ringing sort, the worst to be in.

"Jay," Cole eventually says, "You kept me alive."

He says it with a sense of confidence rooted in both faith and fact, as if he'd been awake and present while Jay pumped his own heart for him, but Jay thinks him wrong. His memories prove as much, as do his nightmares.

But Cole continues, "You kept me going back there, and it's because of that I'm even here. And that—" Cole looks up at him, "that's gotta be worth something, right?"

Cole is worth more than something in Jay's eyes, but looking back, it's hard to see how his efforts did anything.

"Jay," Cole prods when he's unable to respond, "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you."

That's also wrong. But is it? Jay looks at Cole's side, then towards the arm that saved his life. Cole allowed Jay to walk away that day, but what would've happened if Jay hadn't tried staunching the bleeding, hadn't worked to keep his friend's heart beating?

He shudders in spite of himself, wincing away the pain.

"Jay?" comes Cole's voice, worried, even now.

Why wouldn't I?

"I guess..." is all Jay can manage, and he sighs as he says it, leaning back in the chair, "I guess so. Though I wouldn't have been able to do it if you hadn't saved me first."

"Well, then," Cole grins, "We'll call it even then, okay?"

A snort escapes him, small, but worth it, "Sure."

They agree to shake on it, though Cole has to use his off-hand, and the confusion it invites might have been humorous on another day, another time. Though Jay finds himself able to smile again, he doesn't feel any better.

In truth, he is overjoyed to speak with Cole, more than he thinks he's letting on. So he chooses instead to focus on that feeling throughout the remainder of the afternoon, as they talk until the sunlight fades. It's an amiable conversation, the first in ages that steers clear of heavy topics. Cole talks of his sketchbooks, which he kindly asks Jay to bring next visit, because even drawing with the wrong hand is better than lying around and staring at the ceiling. Jay talks of Cole's sketches, having looked them over while he wasn't sure if Cole was going to make it and marveled at their sloppy beauty.

He doesn't tell Cole all the reasons he was looking over the sketches, but he does tell him how much he admires them. The sentiments make Cole look away and shake his head, but there's a smile there, too, small and shy.

Jay makes a little competition for himself, tries to see how many times he can make Cole smile before he has to go. He loses count after the first hour, because they're both all too happy to be in each other's company.

Near death experiences have that sort of effect, he supposes.

"You'll bring me that shoebox tomorrow, won't you?" says Cole when Jay struggles to stand.

Nya waits by the door, a knock she gave a sign that the day's visit has come to an end. The sound and its meaning hurt more than it should, more than it would.

Cole wants to attempt crocheting, because Jay's birthday is but around the corner, and Jay is in a good mood enough to try a little light teasing, "Making sure I didn't spend your sixty, eh?" he jokes, unable to smile as he struggles to slide on his jacket. Springtime makes for chilly nights, and ribs are a lot more essential than he used to believe.

Cole chuckles, and he looks exhausted under the lambent light. Jay doesn't feel so bad about leaving.

"Of course I will," Jay says, "I'll bring a deck of cards, too, so we have something to play."

"You're the best, man."

"I know," says Jay. He's over by the door now, greeting Nya's grin with a nod. Before he goes, a thought strikes him, and he turns one last time, "Hey."

Cole is already starting to drift off, but his head perks up and his eyebrows rise.

"I love you too."

The look he receives in return is almost worth everything.

Almost.

Jay is quiet on the drive back, enough for Nya to point it out. Jay's response is just a shrug, because he's no more or less quiet than he's been since the morning it happened.

Nya asks if he's feeling any better now that he's spoken with Cole, and Jay does, he really does.

But he's still upset. He's more upset than he was before he spoke with Cole, because that conversation had been his last hope that his friend could somehow quell his fears.

Why wouldn't I?

Jay knows...he knows the dangers their job supplies. He lives it with every battle they go through, with Zane's sacrifice and Garmadon's, everyone fighting a tide to keep from being carried out to sea. Jay knows this; they all do.

That night, Jay takes the van out after everyone else falls asleep. He shouldn't be driving, really, but he needs air, space, and somehow their quarters just don't have enough of it.

The drive is the same as the day Cole and Jay fell together inside a building, but the night washes a different light over the landscape, changing it enough that Jay isn't reminded too much of the pain.

He goes to a distant field, where broom straw and buffalo grass swallow the remains of a barbed wire fence. A pale moon finds Jay leaning against the withered posts, bent diagonal under his weight, watching it in the sky.

Cole came close, too close, to being carried away, where no one could reach him. It's nothing they're not used to, but Jay hates the commonality of it all, the very fact that they, teenagers, children, could be so used to life-threatening situations. More so, he hates the lack of hesitation.

Why wouldn't I?

Cole didn't even have to think.

And that scares Jay. The thought that someone would go that far for him, invite so much pain, all for a lonely boy from a junkyard in the desert, terrifies him. Jay guesses that Cole likely didn't have death in mind when the building began its fall, but Cole didn't even have to think.

He came close. Drifting away, past a point where Jay could find him, Cole came close.

It scares Jay, in a primal sort of way that he knows will take root somewhere in his bones, so that he will always feel it. It makes him breathe so fast it hurts. His mood is a stark contrast to the setting, and for some reason that bothers him, so he tries to calm himself, sigh.

Springtime is here, a time for beginnings, hope.

For now, he focuses on the fact that Cole is alive. It's springtime, and they're friends again.

That thought makes him smile, small, at first, then wider.

Cole and Jay are friends again, and together, he thinks, they'll get through this, now and always.

A whippoorwill begins a cheerful call in the distance, and Jay watches the moon create long shadows as it lowers itself over the open field.

End.

Voila, we're here. This is a bit shorter than what I normally do (though, truth be told, most of my stuff is consistent in its inconsistency), but I hope it was good.

I hope you all enjoyed, at least. Huge thanks to everyone who followed and reviewed (shout outs to JBomb217 and the other Guests, who I cannot thank privately). Thank you all for taking the time to read this; your interest and support truly mean the world to me.

I hope all of you have a fantastic day! Thank you for reading!